Movies - Roadblock

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	Movies - Roadblock

Roadblock is a 1951 black-and-white film noir starring Charles McGraw. The 73-minute crime thriller was shot on location in Los Angeles, California. The cinematography is by Nicholas Musuraca. The film was directed by Harold Daniels.

Insurance investigator Joe Peters falls for a bad girl, Diane (Joan Dixon). The couple meet in an airport and wind up sharing a hotel room in Kansas after their plane is forced to make an emergency landing. She wants Joe but loves the finer things in life, like furs and jewelry, more. Peters can't afford things like that on his small salary, so the normally honest Peters setup a heist in an attempt to finance a dream life with Diane. After the crime, an elaborate railway mail car robbery, things begin to go awry and love sick Peters who continues to try to cover up his actions.

Dialogue

The hard-edged clipped dialogue between the two lead actors is typical of film noir. The following is an example early in the film when Joe and Diane first get to know each other:

"What makes you the way you are?" Joe
"What makes anybody the way they are?" Diane
"You tell me." Joe
"Where they got started maybe. I had a lot of jobs - modeling, clerking, secretarial work. I tried hard but it was no go." Diane
"Does that make a chiseler out of you? Must have been something else." Joe
"Whenever I got a job there was always a man who wasn't interested in my working ability." Diane
"I understand that." Joe
"Really? Coming from you that's a compliment." Diane

Critical reaction

calls the film a "low-budget but highly engrossing film noir" while Dennis Schwartz on states "In the end everything was done in such a flat manner, that it was hard to care that straight-shooter McGraw lost his integrity and life for an icy broad who ironically would have loved him the way he was."

Cast

Charles McGraw
as Joe Peters
Joan Dixon
as Diane
Lowell Gilmore as Kendall Webb
Louis Jean Heydt as Harry Miller
Milburn Stone
as Egan

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